Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who is going to build.

There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong. 'Why did you climb the mountain?' 'I climbed the mountain because it was there.' That's utter nonsense...You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.

Think of it as you want it, not as it is!

Both my mother and I were determined that we weren't going to stay on welfare. We always worked toward doing better, toward having a better life. We never had any doubts that we would.

If an open source product gets good enough, we'll simply take it. So the great thing about open source is nobody owns it - a company like Oracle is free to take it for nothing, include it in our products and charge for support, and that's what we'll do. So it is not disruptive at all - you have to find places to add value. Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane. We don't have to fight open source, we have to exploit open source.

I enjoy the competition and the process of learning as we compete. The whole thing is just fascinating. I don't know what I'll do when I retire. When I go sailing, I look around ... anyone want to race? I just love competing as opposed to just going out and watching the sunset.

Bill Gates wants people to think he's Edison, when he's really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn't right... wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence.